sixthiterationlogs | "The Only Home I'll Ever Know"

Entry tags:

"The Only Home I'll Ever Know"

WHO: Margaery Tyrell
WHERE: The Woods
WHEN: Shortly After Specimen Room
OPEN TO: Robb Stark
WARNINGS: Nothing so far

She walked the forest in a daze, her headache long gone, but replaced by a different sort of pain. Somewhere along the way back from the canyon, she and Jude parted. The news of what they found was not something she wanted to share, as she didn't understand much of the technology or what it meant completely. She only knew what the vials had left her feeling and that was lost. Hair and blood, not only of the villagers but of the animals they received. Even poor Gilbert was among them and that frightened her most of all. What was real? What was true? She had memories of Westeros, she still felt the warmth of the sun and the lush grass of Highgarden. She remembered how the Black Cells smelled and the sight of Loras huddled in the dark. She could simply reach back in her memories and she was there again, the weight of the Lannister cloak on her shoulders as she wed Joffery and Tommen's boyish eagerness during their wedding night. Was she real or created? Was something implanted in her or stolen?

All of the sweetness that she found in the village had become ash against her tongue and the beautiful sounds of the wood were dead against her ears. Only Gilbert caught her attention as he stopped and lifted his head to the wind. With a small excited bark, he raced through the underbrush and away from Margaery's side. Numb, she followed after him. Even if he wasn't real, even if he was created, he was hers and she couldn't bear to let go of the only thing that was holding her together.

It didn't take her long to find him, yipping and circling around the one person that could chase away all of this insanity. Robb. From the look of things, he was hunting. It should have occurred to her that it was early morning. The night in the canyon had not been pleasant and time had slipped away from her. Of course he would be hunting, as he did every day.

If Gilbert was holding her together, Robb was the foundation that kept her standing. He was home, the only home that could ever be hers. She looked ragged and exhausted, but her face and frame lightened as she approached him. She didn't say anything, only fell into his arms and clutched him tight against her. How could this not be real? She had never felt love before, but she knew it was strong and fierce within her. If they were created, they were created for each other. Others take the Observers, she needed and would guard this with all of the strength she could muster.

"I'm glad to see you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Margaery?"

There was scarcely time to speak her name before she'd crashed into his arms, and Robb reacted instinctively, dropping his bow and quiver and reaching to catch her with strong, if uncertain arms.

"Margaery," he repeated, holding her close as he tipped up her chin to look at him properly. Exhaustion was smudged beneath her eyes, and his stomach gave a sickly twist -- Had she gotten lost and been in the forest all night long?

"What's happened? Are you all right?"

That was a question she wasn't sure how to answer. She knew she felt lost and tired, ready to collapse against the ground and let the day pass her, shedding any thoughts or needs she might have. A sea of nothingness. That didn't tell her whether or not she was all right, some sort of reassurance for him.

Instead, she took in a shaky breath and held tighter to him. "I don't know." She hated that phrase. That was all she had been able to say to new arrivals whenever they asked about who brought them here and where they were. I don't know. Now she knew something, but truth was no more clear than before.

"Something is happening to me, Robb." To all of them now...but she didn't know how to describe it to Robb. Not yet. There were so many other thoughts in her head, all of them jumbled and rushed, swirling about her like rapids. She needed to feel something real, to hear something true. The only glimpse of it in a world of falsehoods. "Hold me and tell me you love me, please. Everything is falling apart."

When he'd been young, Robb's mother had always known precisely what to do and say to comfort him from the little ills of childhood. How many times had he watched her offer solace to smallfolk who had lost husbands or wives or children? Moments like these, he wished he'd inherited even some small portion of her innate empathy, her ability to soothe.

Holding Margaery in his arms, his instinct was the opposite: Alarm, and the notion of retribution to whomever was responsible for putting her in her current state.

"Margaery," he repeated, one hand firm against the small of her back and the other cradling her head. "I love you. What is falling apart? Have you been in the forest all night?"

Comfort was something given, but rarely received. She wouldn't know what to do with it if it was offered. Her grandmother had been pragmatic, raising her to think first of what needed to be done rather than to waste time on slights and stings. It was the simple knowledge that she wasn't alone that mattered more and Robb always provided that reassurance.

"Something happened during the earthquake." His hold on her was able to keep her upright and steady. It didn't feel as if the world was collapsing any long. "It's madness, but I swear that I am telling the truth. I see things in my head now...things that are going to happen."

She pulled back to meet his gaze, to let him see her sincerity. "I went to the canyon because I saw something in my head. I thought I might be wrong but, there was a cave and in that cave was a room. I think it belonged to the Observers."

Once, he might not have believed her regardless of how she pleaded for him to believe her. The idea of anyone seeing the future in their mind, of being led by strange and powerful forces would have seemed absurd. But Robb had been here long enough to know that after his initial flash of skepticism, this place and the people who put them within it were capable of a great many things far beyond belief.

"What was in the room?"

So long Robb had gone without sharing the widespread inclination to find a way out. It had seemed a slap in the face of whatever gods had placed him here and provided a second chance at living. But he cannot deny the curiosity that sparks now, the sudden impulse to uncover answers.

She had loved this world, despite all of the insanity and danger. She loved it still, no matter if any of this was real or not. Standing with Robb, she could remember the reasons that this world meant so much to her. She was free and had a chance for a life she never imagined or let herself think of before. There was family and friends, a simple existence of working and caring for herself. There was love as well, precious and rare in her experience. Even if none of it was real, it was hers.

It seemed like madness, but the memory of the pain and the images chased away whatever doubts emerged. "It is hard to describe. There were machines I didn't recognize, but I was told were lab equipment." Whatever that meant. "There was something that stored vials, samples of every plant we have found and animal." She nodded down at Gilbert, who sat patiently by her feet. "My dog as well. They were labelled."

She held tighter to Robb, the worst still not approached. "There were other vials that had hair and blood. The labels had our names and the color of the scrubs we arrived in. It was ours, they took samples from us." She bit down on her lip, the fears rising to the surface. "What if it isn't real, Robb? What if none of this is real? Finnick said once that his game makers could create anything. What if we..." she couldn't finish the thought.

To Robb, it sounded like some manner of sorcery or witchcraft, their hair and blood collected for a complicated, unfathomable ritual. His immediate impulse was to seek out the room and witness the contents himself, but Margaery was a more present concern, trembling and afraid as she clung to him.

"Shh," he soothed, holding her close as he stroked a gentle hand over her hair. "You're real and I'm real, and the rest of it is real enough. It will be all right."

She wished she could take comfort in that, but it felt impossible. Until she understood what the room actually meant, she would always wonder, a doubt lingering in her mind. But it wasn't a fear she needed to inflict on Robb. There were so many sick in the village and so much hardship already after the earthquake. This wasn't the time to voice her concerns. It was best left to the night when she couldn't sleep.

"Jude was there as well." She said, remembering what he intended to do. "There is supposed to be a town meeting where this is discussed." While she knew she should attend and answer questions, she had no great desire to. She didn't understand the technology and she wished to be alone to process it. Robb, however, might wish to go. "You can learn more than what I can tell you."

The clear implication was that, whether because she was upset or simply from pure exhaustion, Margaery did not intend to attend the meeting with him. What she'd told him had been so strange and vague, Robb hardly knew how to properly reaction, if there even was a proper reaction, but he could not deny wanting to know more.

Still, he could not simply leave Margaery alone like this. He supposed he could track this Jude down later, or perhaps just find someone else who had attended to fill him in.

"First, we see to you," he said, giving Margaery a reassuring squeeze. "Come on, then. Let's get you home so that you can eat something and rest."

There was a selfish part of her that wanted him near, just a moment alone with him while she processed everything. She didn't have Stark honor, but she recognized what was the right thing to do and what was the more selfish desire. She should simply say she wanted to be alone, allowing him to learn more. The truth was, she didn't want to be alone. She had been alone for too long and Robb's presence was comforting.

She pressed a hand to his cheek, giving him a soft, small kiss. There was a silent thanks in her eyes, grateful that he would be willing to see her home and look after her. Exhaustion had a firm hold on her and she wasn't sure how much further she could have walked alone, weighed down by so many thoughts.

Turning towards the village, she linked her hand with his, able to breathe a sigh of relief. "I don't know what these Observers have in mind for us, but I won't ever let them touch you." If the hair and blood was his, and if she ever found the Observers, she would let her thorns emerge. "You are mine and I am yours. They can't take that away from us."

"I didn't realize you were so fierce," Robb replied with a faint smile, and pulled her under the shelter of his arm as they walked. "Have you always been this way, or is it only for me?"

In truth, it was a bit unnerving -- Not that Margaery was concealing a secret fire, but that whatever had happened to her had prompted such a reaction. The need to tromp off through the forest and confront this room for himself was a strong one, but he instead continued to move them both calmly back toward the village. Margaery must come first; there was no question.

"I am fierce when it comes to my family." She had raged at Tommen when Loras had been put in a cell. She had risked her position and deception to remove her grandmother from King's Landing. Neither of them were here now, only Robb, who had come to mean so much. She wouldn't let him fall in harm's path and she couldn't fail to protect her loved ones again.

The entire experience had shaken her. While she had heard of the pods, it was this room that left her certain of Finnick's belief that someone was toying with them. She shook her head, as if to banish the thoughts that had shadowed her return to the village. She would lock them away and bring them out only when she was alone that night.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"The Only Home I'll Ever Know"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject